STIRLING ALBION operations director Stuart Brown was relieved when fears of Scottish football Armageddon in the summer proved unfounded.

But he insists that’s exactly what the game will be faced with if a pyramid system is introduced as part of new proposals in time for next season.

The Binos sit bottom of the Third Division, the position that will see clubs drop out of the senior game in future as part of the overhaul.

SPL, SFL and SFA chief executives Neil Doncaster, David Longmuir and Stewart Regan unveiled plans for a 12-12-18 set-up to be voted on by clubs.

And the trio claimed they could be in place in time for next season, with a pyramid system one of the key elements outlined in the proposals.

But Albion supremo Brown insists there’s no way clubs in the lower regions of Third Division would agree to this season’s bottom dogs dropping out of the senior set-up.

However, he hasn’t been told otherwise and hopes that’s made clear when representatives of each club meet at Hampden on January 31 to go over the new proposals in details.

Brown told Record Sport: “People used the word Armageddon a while ago and it springs to mind if they try to introduce the pyramid in time for next season. It’s not a term I like to use loosely because I never believed it at the time.

“I haven’t seen or been told anything to tell us it won’t be introduced but I’d be really staggered if it was on the table for next season. There’s potential for the other proposed changes to be in place for next season, providing the financial distribution model is right.

“But to determine a club’s future is outside of senior football for even just one season is unpalatable. You’d need to be aware of that before you kick off, from game one. It would be totally unfair to introduce the pyramid system halfway through a season.

“But if it turns out that is what’s on the table I can’t see any clubs voting for it this season. I certainly can’t see ourselves, East Stirling and Clyde voting for it as things stand.

“Our financial projections are simply not based on the club going out of senior football under rules created during the season. They can’t rush it through.

“It would take a season to put the infrastructure in place. Below senior level there’s no infrastructure that which would see a pyramid structure for next season.

“In the past many junior sides have resisted any offer to come into the senior set-up because financially it would crucify them. They’re better off where they are.

“But maybe they’ve seen more detail on the financial distribution model that makes it far more attractive so I could understand that. Where the pyramid structure fits into all these proposals goodness only knows.

“But there has to be some kind of impetus to not finishing bottom – and that’s maybe not a good time to be saying that as the 30th club in the SFL. At the moment it’s a bit of a dead duck.

“So what if you finish bottom? There’s nowhere to go. There’s the rule that if you finish bottom three times your SFL membership could be reconsidered but unless there’s someone ready to come into that slot it’s meaningless.”

Brown also wants to know what league chiefs have planned for the 18-team bottom league.

He said: “If it’s just one up and one play-off place then you could have a stale league long before the halfway stage of the season.

“If you could have something like the Championship in England with two up and four in the play-offs then that would keep a third of your league involved.

“But if it’s one up then Rangers would be virtually guaranteed that one place and 17 clubs fighting for the other. Once the winter arrives fans would say, ‘Sod it, I won’t because the result doesn’t matter’.”